Claim 2: After everyone in the world (including an Israeli police spokesman) has admitted that Hamas did not kill those three Israeli teens, the Jerusalem Post has published a story claiming that Hamas leader Salah al-Aruri, speaking at an Islamic conference in Turkey, bragged about his group's responsibility for those murders.

Really? It would be idiotic for any Hamas leader to say those words now. Such an admission -- in public! -- could not aid Hamas in the slightest, while doing great injury to the worldwide sympathy for the Palestinian cause generated by the atrocities in Gaza.

Although there is indeed a World Muslim Scholar's Union conference in Istanbul, I've seen no indication that al-Aruri is in attendance. Perhaps he is, although he would seem to have his hands busy in Gaza (where his home was destroyed last month). As the photo indicates, these conferences are large-scale public affairs. If a Hamas authority really did make a shocking and important claim before such a huge audience, one would presume that the news would appear in a journal other than the Jerusalem Post.

Let's keep in mind the record of Israeli fabrication in this matter. Israeli officials very quickly determined that the three youths had been killed, yet pretended for 11 days that the boys were still alive. These theatricals gave the IDF a pretext for arresting 350 Palestinians, five of whom were killed. As this Reuters story notes,

An Israeli government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Israel was looking to leverage the search into a wider clampdown on Hamas in the West Bank and was also looking at legal aspects of deporting West Bank Hamas leaders to Gaza.

The actual leader of the small cell which kidnapped the boys is a man named Hussam Qawasmeh (sometimes spelled Kawasme), who was captured by the Israelis. He readily admitted ordering the deed -- but only after being tortured did he "confess" that Hamas leaders in Gaza had financed the crime. I'm not sure that a crime of this sort is so expensive as to require outside financing. Obviously, an admission made under torture has little value.

From whom were they claiming to rescue Jim Foley? If it was the Syrian government, then it's no surprise that he wasn't there. But if it was the other guys, then when do they say that he was handed over to new captors who are the government's sworn enemies? Isn't this claim a real problem for the US government's credibility?